As you might know, since moving from Civilization to Hicksville, my internet connection has been as reliable as the 78 to Halewood (which, for those unfamiliar with the 78, is totally unreliable). My Broadband connection has been more of an elasticband connection of late, dropping connections every so often, especially at night. During the day it is mostly fine, weekends are my only control of this statement, but during the week and the daytime connectivity seems to be moderately better than the shite thing that I have in the evenings.It seems that the majority of Error 721 messages I get come after 8:30pm. (The time I am most active on the net at home)

So first off I emailed Demon Internet with my problem. I sent them a detailed account of what I had done to trouble shoot the issue, using my knowledge as a former broadband technical support bloke. I made sure I had the latest drivers, I made sure I had the correct equipment, I even made sure that my telephone was not in use when I tried to connect. But still the problem remained. They sent me a standard reply back with some fob off about waiting until the line had stabilised which I did dutifully. Then I called them. I spoke to a chap in the helpdesk who listened to my problem and ran through the same checks I said I’d ran through in my email. I complied because the dude was just doing his job. Eventually, he said he would need to refer it to BT Wholesale who would call to see if there is anything they could do and to run through further tests. Which I did.

The BT Wholesale dude listened to everything I said. I spoke clearly and concisely and the chap sounded happy that he was conversing with someone who actually knew about callcentres and technical support. We ran through further tests and discussed the physical telephone connection and the hardware I use. My respect for him was quite high until he started on about how actually I should be using a router for my ADSL connection rather than the USB modem provided to me by Demon. Of course I corrected him saying that as badgerfish (my computer) was the only computer in the house a router, wireless or otherwise, would not make a scrap of difference and I wasnt willing to fork out the £50 for a piece of equipment I had no need for.

Instead he agreed that an engineer was required to assess whether my telephone line was at fault (it is – it is an old grey wire rather than a new black wire) but Demon had to book the engineer rather than the chap at BT Wholesale (bureaucracy at its best eh?). So on Monday when I got home from work there was a message on the answerphone from a chap at Demon who said “An engineer will visit on Tuesday between 1pm and 3:30pm”. Of course I am at work then, and so is the wife, so I called Demon again only this time I got through to Delhi or Bangalore;

Him – “I’m sorry Mr Gnomepants an engineer will be out to you tomorrow Mr Gnomepants”
Me – “Well he’ll have a nice sit out side as nobody will be here to let him in”
Him – “OK Mr Gnomepants I shall have to book another day for you but I cannot guarentee the time, Mr Gnomepants”
Me – “Fine”

So he told me that someone would call to rearrange a time for me….which they did on the Tuesday night. When I got home from work on Tuesday I had a message from the BT engineer saying “Let me in, I’m outside and it’s raining”. I then later get a call from Demon saying that they cancelled the engineer and would like to rearrange a time. Which I did. So Today the wife has taken half a day so that the engineer can gain access to look at my telephone connection and see that it works (because it works in the day!). The engineer was booked for 1pm – 3:30pm.

At 12:20pm I get a call from the engineer

“Hello I’m outside your house can you let me in?”
“No” says I “I am at work and my wife won’t be there until just before 1pm”
“Oh well I’ll go to Sheffield and comeback at 2pm”
“No you won’t” says I, “Wait there”

So I called the missis who was already in transit to the house. But the cheeky fucker wanted to leave the area when he rang me….I think thats down right cheeky, turn up early for an appointment then say if you’re not here in 10 minutes I’m fucking off. Hmmm…I’ve got your number mate.

Now you’d think in this day and age when more than 50% of people have jobs that are between 9 and 5 that service people like telephone engineers, parcel delivery dudes, local greengrocers and other such people, would call or open up shop after 5pm so that they can actually catch people in! Wouldn’t you?

I just hope my internet connection is fixed before the end of this month or there will be some really firm letters sent out to the CEO’s of BT and Demon….oh yes….sow and reap…sow and reap…

Big hugs today go to storm1jet2

Stop Press Apparently it was the blanking plate on the front of our telephone socket. Go figure…..But I’m not entirely convinced…only time will tell..